Of Nymeria (and Ghost)
by bhut
Summary: I.e., what happened to them after the show ended, and they didn't stick with the Starks.


**Of Nymeria (and Ghost)**

_Disclaimer: all characters belong to George Martin and co._

Once upon a time, in Westeros, there was Nymeria. Actually, there had been several Nymerias in Westeros' history, but this one was special, because she was a dire wolf rather than a human.

…Now, as a dire wolf, Nymeria was a creature of the North, destined to howl at its' giant-ass and crystal-clear moon at night when the latter makes the snow sparkle like diamonds in winter, and does the same thing to the night dew in summer; to hunt deer and elk and wild boar with her fellow dire wolves; to – maybe, once upon a time – have her belly and ears scratched in the Stark household… but none of this really worked out, and so Nymeria found herself living south of the Neck, alongside lesser wolves of the local lands… and then the Longest night began to manifest itself, and the winter began to grew cold, really cold, even beyond the endurance of Nymeria – and so she moved even further south, together with her new pack. As she did, she came across Arya Stark, but nothing came out of it, and it was a different story altogether, while in this one, after Nymeria ended her encounter with Arya Stark and continued to go on southwards, she and her new pack found themselves, at the border of Reach, aka the southwest Westeros, where they ran into another pack, a more numerous pack, of wolves, but those were the wolves of Dorne, meaning that in Earth's terms they were more like oversized dholes, (aka the Asiatic wild dogs), rather than proper wolves, (let alone dire wolves).

"And where are you going?" Nymeria asked the other leader in Westeros Wolf, (because in Westeros, animals can talk to each other whenever humans were not around to eavesdrop at their discussion, period). "Aren't Reach and Dorne at odds with each other?"

"Yeah," the other wolf leader replied in a voice that was an odd mix of cocky and subdued. "But this is Fimbulwinter, the Longest night in human terms, and in Dorne this means famine, drought and death, and so we're moving here to survive for a little bit longer. You?"

"Pretty much the same thing," Nymeria nodded sagely in reply. "Let's go and see for how long we can survive in Reach."

And this was what they did, and somehow the Longest night failed to materialize, the Final winter failed to be truly final, but was revealed just an ordinary winter instead. None of the wolves planned to leave Reach, though, because living there, even in winter, was _that_ good.

…And then Ghost arrived, flanked by a couple of younger wild dire wolves that had attached to him because of reasons. "Arya Stark killed the Night King and stopped the Longest night," he told Nymeria brightly.

"Good for all of us," Nymeria replied. "Are you leaving or staying?"

"Staying," Ghost said crossly; "Jon decided that he apparently doesn't need me anymore, because of reasons – Targaryen-shaped reasons."

"Those are the worst," Nymeria agreed, honestly. (Dire wolves did not care much for dragons or for Targaryens… not that there was much difference between the two in the dire wolves' opinion). "Well, welcome aboard. It will be interesting living in Reach from now on."

And this was what Ghost and Nymeria and many other wolves – ordinary wolves, dire wolves, Dorne wolves and so on – did. Normally, you would expect the _humans_ of the Reach to do something, but after a series of unfortunate events that involved Lannisters, Targaryens, and Martells in concordance with the Reach's original top dog family – Tyrells, the Lords Paramount of the Reach – were downsized, (putting it mildly), and were interested in fixing other things other than their new ecological development, (not that that Westeros had had such a concept to begin with, not in this point in time), and when the dust settled, Bran Stark was the King in King's Landing, (and Sansa Stark – the Queen in the North), and the Reach had a very stable wolf population that wasn't going away in a hurry.

The so-called Breadbasket of Westeros was about to have an ecological catastrophe, and it was going to spread to the rest of Westeros. Put otherwise, it was life in Westeros as usual – anything else but boring.

The end.


End file.
